Sorry, Belo, But I Can't Sign Off On Your Stance That Dallas Needs Another "Signature" Bridge

​OK, wait, wait, wait. Sorry. I don't get it. I need a little catch-up here. The second Calatrava fake suspension "signature bridge" across the Trinity is going to be a bicycle bridge?

A bicycle bridge?

We're going to spend more than $100 million in tax money to build a make-believe suspension bridge across the Trinity River for bicycles? Do you remember anybody ever telling us that?

No. Look, I'm sure. The Park Cities Ladies Guild -- that's not the right name, I'll think of it -- the private group pushing for "signature bridges" downtown never once told us that one of them was going to be a $100 million-plus bicycle bridge.

The Trinity Trust Foundation -- that's the name. They're the ones who want these signature bridges ... wait a minute, wait a minute, what does that even mean? What is a signature bridge? Is that like a Ralph Lauren Polo shirt? With a little insignia on it?

​In this case the insignia they want is the name of Santiago Calatrava, a Spanish high-fashion architect who designs stringy sort of flingy-dingy wingy-looking things. His name and designs are what would make something a signature bridge, as opposed to a bridge bridge.

Individual bridges are actually being named after rich ladies. The first one, already going up, is called the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge. The next one, the one for bicycles, will be called the Margaret McDermott Bridge. The families of these ladies have kicked in large sums of money for the naming rights but nothing like what you and I are kicking in as taxpayers.

The McDermott Bridge was originally supposed to be a freeway bridge. But to make it a signature freeway bridge, instead of a freeway freeway bridge, we taxpayers were going to have to kick in something on the order of two to three hundred million extra in tax money.

Extra. For the signature.

Now the plans for a second Calatrava freeway bridge have fallen apart, so the new idea, apparently, is for a Calatrrava bicycle bridge. But nobody ever quite says it like that. In an editorial last week, The Dallas Morning News said, "The city's new goal is to apply Calatrava designs to pedestrian/bike elements of the project, either incorporated into the service roads, which hug the main bridges on separate spans, or as a standalone structure."

Bicycle bridge.

Caltrava is demanding $10 million just to re-draw his fling-dingy wingy thing from a freeway bridge to a bicycle bridge. Then apparently the city council hopes to spend another $92 million in transportation money from Congress building whatever he draws.

Last week the entire council except for Angela Hunt voted for this idea.

When my wife and I walk in our neighborhood, we have to walk out in the street, because the sidewalks are worse than anything I have ever seen in Mexico. The city has been slashing expenditures for streets, libraries and parks for 10 years. Next year it faces a possible $60-million to $100-million shortfall in a basic operations and maintenance budget of $400 million -- 25 percent.
And the council just voted for a $100-million-plus bicycle bridge.

Of the three real mayoral candidates, only David Kunkle has come out against this kind of stuff. Ron Natinsky is solidly in favor of it. And Mike Rawlings, a member of the Dallas Citizens Council where most of these ideas originate, won't say.

I don't know why the damn bicycle bridge isn't the main issue in this election.

And if we can't do a damn thing to stop it, and if we're going to have these stringy thingys all up and down the river while the city crumbles into the dust, I think we should go ahead and name them for the Park Cities ladies' party names. You know, like the names you see in the captions for the party pix in D?

We could have the Bootsy Tuppinflipper Bridge, the Kitten McWhippin Bridge, the Sha-Sha Hunt-Crow-Zamboni Bridge and on and on. Might as well play to the stereotype, if that's the way we're going to roll. We should put up billboards outside of town: "Welcome to Dallas, World's String-Dingiest City."

Don't give yourself so much credit @Wick, I would hardly call you a leader. Since when did you give a damn about West Dallas before there was money it for you from the Trinity Trust Foundation advertising? Or is it because your investors own everything "this side" of the Trinity banks now. Maybe that's the reason you dissed East Dallas for so long, none of them owned anything over there and surprise, surprise, 20 years ago you never cared when the young hipsters were organizing bike clubs, art classes, streetscapes, outdoor street events, or that we took back our schools. In fact, D's favorite thing to say was East Dallas doesn't like change. Translation = my investors don't own anything over there and will not profit from its redevelopment so let's not encourage that sort of thing, there's no money in it for us.

Did you and your buddies use your media company to constantly play up the "danger" in Oak Cliff and West Dallas in an attempt to keep smaller investors at bay so your friends could buy up toward "the vision" and now that it's in the bag and time to redevelop, lo and behold, you suddenly support West Dallas. Praise Jesus, we're so grateful! Oh sorry, I forgot it's Passover. Holy Moses, we're so grateful!

And since you brought up the schools. Did you send your kids to DISD? Despite being from Detroit, Schutze sent his kid to DISD and those of us who did, have every right to complain when things go wrong and brag when things go right - you don't have the right to have an opinion.

Until the Park Cities owns up and shares in the "tax burden" for our Bridge Over Troubled Water and the Arts District, for that matter - then and only then will we care what you think. Actually, most of us outside 75205 will never care what the paid off opinions of Big PC are.

Retire already and unshackle us so we can record our city's history correctly and not through the rose colored glasses of your phony cronies and the guys they select despite reality.

Did you guys hear about the cable car they are going to construct over the Thames in London? Dude, this whole signature bridge thing is like so last week! Wouldn't it be coo...a cable car over the Trinity! Maybe, Calatrava knows a little something about building em.

I searched dallascityhall.com and learned there is such a thing as the "Sidewalk Replacement Program," but there's no information, only a 311 System form to fill out.I guess we get "Signature" bridges but a "less-than-world-class" website.

I'd like to know who is related to this bridge designer, I could see a bridge for a place that has water, otherwise the one they have is fine. wait, maybe a tollbridge could be put up so you can squeeze just a little harder

I'm all for bicycles - really I am. good for the body, good for the environment, etc. I'd just settle for your average bridge with a bike lane - the cyclist I know aren't looking for luxury...just safety and a place to ride. I suppose I'm not in the right circles to understand why we need this type of bridge.

It would seem that Jim Schutze’s every apple contains a worm. Perhaps he should rouse himself from his glowering torpor and take a good look around. For reasons known only to him, I suspect he wouldn’t like what he sees: Citizens smiling, laughing, enjoying neighborly good cheer. Citizens with baby strollers marveling at the magnificent improvements in the Trinity Corridor – improvements that are already a fait accompli in spite of the naysayers who dogged its steps, who indeed have dogged every great public works project since the Great Pyramids of Giza. Citizens attending nightclubs, contributing to a vibrant local economy even while getting a good buzz into the bargain. Citizens lolling about in the Trinity River park, enjoying the sunshine that is our great fortune and bounty in Dallas, Texas, and the fresh air that rouses the constitution and injects new life into the blood. Citizens enjoying good fellowship in the worship house of their choosing. In a word, citizens who are content, however much their contentment irks one Jim Schutze. So how do we best address a citizenry that enjoys unprecedented contentment – such contentment, it hardly needs be pointed out, as is but a wistful dream in Mr. Schutze’s native Detroit?

Should we bemoan the state of our roads? Should we offer criticisms, but no solutions, for a beleaguered but resilient school district? Should we complain about corruption where none exists? Should we, in short, throw refuse from the peanut gallery at those who are the very architects of our contentment? Why, no, we shouldn’t. I say we should praise our local business visionaries for the exceptional leadership they have provided -- regardless of whether such praise would come as anathema to the malcontent likes of Messrs. Wilonsky and Schutze. While the usual suspects mope about the perceived failures of the past, the leaders among us, as ever, have our eyes fixed firmly on a bright future. Join us!

The city of dallas will quickly get a contractor to your house if you'd like to pay 100% of the cost of repairing your sidewalk. For the 50/50 split, your name goes on a waiting list. Only so much money is budgeted for each year, hence the list grows longer and longer. You'll be moving/dead before your sidewalk gets fixed under the program. Meanwhile, all of the moms in my neighborhood walk their kids and push strollers on the street because it's actually safer than the sidewalks.

Or even, I don't know, convert the old continental bridge to a pedestrian/bike bridge when the current Hunt/Hill Bridge is complete. We might even be able to talk some cheerleaders into standing on it and hold up a big cut-out of the state of texas.

"So how do we best address a citizenry that enjoys unprecedented contentment..." A line better suited for a commercial on contented cows for a local creamery, not citizens of a bankrupt town doing its best to be the Detroit of the Southwest.

Babbit, anyone?

A school district whose high schools consistently earn ratings of the worst in the state, especially the eyesore sitting directly in the sites of both of these esteemed bridges isn't much to gloat about. So far the local land flippers haven't done anything but offload the only commercial development with any pizaazz straight into Denton and Allen.

Is Wick confusing the strollers of upper Manhattan with the strolling lanes of Singleton, or what? Dead Dallas Downtown at night with the neon glow of Broadway?

Upton Sinclair shares DNA with Schutze. Wick shares DNA with.....Rick Perry? Maybe Jack Lowe? the Trinity Trust us to waste every dime we can trying to get a return on swampland bought for pennies per sq foot?

I don't think you can necessarily construe the silence of Dallas citizens as contentment. The former citizens of Detroit who were sickened by the city's direction were silent, they spoke with the moving vans that emptied the city of its middle class. A small nucleus remained (i.e. Gross Pointe), attempting to remould time after time the Renaissance of their larger neighbor into their own aesthetic vision, and look what they're surrounded by now.

Been looking at the swanky Trinity River paintings and sniffing the paint, eh? August 1 in the Trinity Bottoms is a delight. I think I read this guy in a 1898 Dallas Tourist rag. Good leaders, my dear Wick, also thought navigating the Trinity was a jolly good idea. Not every idea is a good one. When too many socialites like something doesn't make it a Jim Dandy good idea.

This is sarcasm, right? JWP = equity? The City Council voting last week to rollback the tightened ethics reform? Mike Rawlings paying big bucks to Willis Johnson and Kathy Nealy to "win" South Dallas and have a gatekeeper if he becomes mayor?

How much do those Parkies pay you Wick? At least this news site talks about pertinent issues opposite of the "D" for douche Mag which has staring contest. Hey Wick, run fast! I think one of the Hunts heirs needs their car valeted.

Well, maybe such an opportunity to design and construct such a "Signature Bridge" is exactly what our amazing architects and engineers need to become "World Renown".

If we absolutely must spend $100M on a pedestrian/bike bridge, then I think we should host a competition for architects and engineering firms in Dallas to design it. Then, maybe other cities will hire our St-architect instead of sending their money to spain.

Where you see "socialites," I see "stewards of the public good." Class envy is a pernicious disorder, Harvey, but it pleases me to report that there's always plenty of room in the winner's circle here in Dallas, Texas. And that item is followed by a related piece of good news: Initiative costs nothing. Now get going, man!

Ah, the famous shrill cry of 'class envy' from the over-indulged. 'Stewards of the public good' would see to the needs of the community first and not prop themselves up with tinker toys. Change Texas' culture before you decide you want to be a global anything. There's a reason Oliver never fit in with Hooterville. It's not that the people there were stupid (which they were for comedic value - like you) but they were simple - and happy for it. Initiative? I've plenty of that and I don't need boondoggles and stark architecture to prove it. My 2nd great grandfather was in the 1889 OK Land Run. He had no financial fortune - nor did any of my family - but he saw opportunity for any willing to take a chance, and a fortune in the life of his family, and freedom from want. Quality of life is about what you make for the community and families, not what you showcase on your mantle - or Trinity ditch. Dallas hasn't traveled so far from 1889 to warrant global city. It's still an American prairie town - with pole dancers. Oh, and the Charlie Sheen 'winners' attitude isn't really needed here either. Let's win another Super Bowl first.